The oil industry generates a large amount of oil-containing waste that is costly to remediate or dispose of. Space available for landfills is dwindling, and sensitivity towards the environmental impacts of waste disposal is increasing. Thus, new uses for oil-containing waste are being explored as an alternative to expensive waste management.
Several options for using oil-containing beach sand are described in “Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response Treatment, Reuse and Disposal Options,” published by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Northwest District on May 19, 2010. The DEP publication describes using viscous oil-containing beach sand directly in a process to produce new road surfacing material. The DEP publication also describes combining oily, less viscous crude washed ashore with beach sand to produce a “clinker,” which is then ground and used as cement. However, applications utilizing reclaimed oil or oil-containing material are still limited.
In addition to the above examples, oil-containing material may be used as filler in construction material compositions. However, simply combining oil-containing filler with conventional binders may, for example, inadequately incorporate oil in the construction material, resulting in poor mechanical properties and materials that may also leach oil. In particular, the use of water in some construction material applications, such as in cement for making concrete, renders oil-containing fillers less useful because the oil may be incompatible with water. Therefore, it is desirable to produce construction material compositions capable of utilizing oil-containing fillers in which the oil is stable in the final composition and does not leach, the odor of the oil is minimal, and the desired mechanical properties of the construction material are maintained or improved.